Chet Nagle is a Naval Aviator, former CIA Agent, occasional
contributor to this blog and the author of two earlier thrillers about
terrorism, The Iran Covenant and The Woolsorter's Plague. Having loved
and recommended them, I ordered my copy of Lazarus
Man from Amazon as soon as it was available. I wasn't disappointed; this is
Nagle's best thriller so far, right out of tomorrow's headlines. I don't want
to say too much about the plot and give it away, but you can read a synopsis on
Amazon at the link. It starts with a cybercrime. The high-tech bank robber is
the good guy, the money speculator he robs is the bad guy, and the former East
German STASI Colonel sent to look for him is a worse guy. The book features
non-stop action and believable characters. I mainly read non-fiction about
politics, economics and history, but like the occasional adventure novel for
relaxation. This one doesn't disappoint. The best two words are in the title:
Volume 1.

Book Recommendations:
As regular readers know, I frequently recommend books on my blog. I don't
recommend every book I read, and in fact have reached an age where if I start a
book and it isn't holding my interest, I don't feel guilty about putting it out
in our Little Free Library. Blog readers have asked me how I can read so many,
and still keep up with the blog, other writing and my health regimen. The
secret is I watch almost no TV, which eats people's lives. If I am watching
Pawn Stars, American Pickers, the news or a football game, I always have a book
in my hand for the commercials or less interesting parts. One reader asked how
I can get through books so fast that I sometimes recommend them in back to back
blogs. Simple: I read in three places. If I have an electronic book, like
recently read Riding the Read Horse,
Tom Kratman and Vox Day's terrific collection of short stories and essays about
war in the future, I read a chapter every day at the computer after finishing
the blog. I also have two "real" books going at any time; one on my
night table for before lights out and one on the kitchen island for reading
during my six daily nebulizer treatments. ~Bob

Excerpt: On October 28, 2014, the conduct of the foreign
relations of the United
States of America reached a low point when
an anonymous "senior Obama administration official" went on public
record in an interview with the journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of the
Atlantic magazine and called the Prime Minister of Israel a
"chickenshit." In the vernacular of American sports language, perhaps
familiar to sports fans in Israel
as well, this was an example of "trash talk" — the kind of insult
intended to undermine the self-respect and focus of an opponent.

Comment On Feb. 3rd blog post:Obama Does Have
a Strategy: Once you see what he is trying to accomplish, it all
makes sense. By Victor Davis Hanson

If he hadn't been so transparent and forthcoming about his
views, Obama would indeed be the 'Manchurian Candidate.' It's really hard to
imagine the mass of the American people (save the guilt-driven extreme left)
being satisfied with this outcome. Undoing this mess will be left to the next
administration, which will start with the skepticism and incredulity of the
world. Cordially, Larry Greenberg

Excerpt: In the process, Matt Molinari and Eric Schnepf,
both 18, also learned a valuable lesson about one of the costs of doing
business: government regulations. ... "Are you kidding me? Our generation
does nothing but complain about his generation being lazy and not working for
their money," he wrote on Bound Brook NJ Events' page. "Here's a
couple kids who take the time to print up flyers, walk door to door in the
snow, and then shovel snow for some spending money. And someone calls the cops
and they're told to stop?" (it dies not with a jack-booted bang, but with
a strangled whimper, as slowly, slowly, all for their own good of course, government
laws and regulations hedge everyone in. ~Bob)

Needed to handle Obamacare? IRS rehired 141 former
employees with issues paying their own taxes. By Sarah Westwood

Excerpt: Hundreds of former Internal Revenue Service
employees who had a history of misconduct and poor performance on the job were
rehired by the tax agency, including some who had committed fraud or falsified
documents. The previously cited IRS staff included 141 employees who had
problems paying their own taxes, the agency’s inspector general said in a
report made public Thursday. Several had “willfully failed to file
their federal tax returns,” the report said. (They are rehired, but told until
they owe millions like al Sharpton, they can't be White house Advisors. ~Bob)

Excerpt: Officers eventually arrested 25-year-old Richard
Phillips and found 22 grams of heroin and $2,316 in cash on him as well as 5.3
grams of cocaine in the vehicle. They also discovered the car he was driving
was stolen. He would later list his occupation as “drug dealer” on his arrest
report.

Excerpt: How serious is the Obama Administration about
international threats to the United
States? White House National Security
Advisor Susan Rice recently spoke at the Brookings Institution and let it be
known that this administration likes national security issues as a way to push
their agenda on alleged global warming and “gay rights.”

Sickening: 25 Quotes That
Show You How Much Liberals Hate Soldiers Like Chris Kyle. By John Hawkins

Excerpt: 4) “American fighters of the Pacific War were not
heroes. The desperation of island combat included exchanged barbarities of
which no one would willingly speak for a generation. On the American side,
there were foul racism, vengeful refusals to take prisoners, a generalized
brutality that extended to a savage air war.” —James Carroll in the Boston Globe

Excerpt: Sources say the suspected robber has been
identified as 18-year-old Tyler Williams of West
Philadelphia. Investigators say a 67-year-old man was walking on a
path when the suspect ran up and demanded cash. ... During the struggle, police
say the victim pulled out his own weapon and fired one shot striking the
attempted robber in the head, killing him.

Excerpt: Saturday evening, the owner of a video poker
business at 420 Raleigh St.
was walking to his car when men with guns walked toward him, according to
police. Bullets were exchanged and one of the alleged robbers, 38-year-old
Frankie Stukes of Wilmington,
was hit. Police found his body alongside the building about 10 p.m.

Excerpt: The Native American tribe leading the movement to
change the name of the Washington Redskins plans to open a $20 million casino
that pays homage to the work of L. Frank Baum, who was born in this village
outside Syracuse
and later wrote “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” Just one problem with the
Oneida Indian Nation’s Yellow Brick Road Casino: A decade before Baum wrote one
of this country’s most celebrated children’s tales, he campaigned for a Native
American genocide. “The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization,
are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier
settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining
Indians,” he wrote in late 1890 for the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer in South Dakota.

Excerpt: Long-term and/or high-dose use of a class of
medications used for hay fever, depression and other ills has been linked in a
new study to a higher risk of dementia.

The drugs -- called anticholinergics -- include
nonprescription diphenhydramine (Benadryl) and tricyclic antidepressants like
doxepin (Sinequan). This class of medications also includes older
antihistamines like chlorpheniramine (Chlor-Trimeton) and
"antimuscarinic" drugs for bladder control, such as oxybutynin
(Ditropan).

Excerpt: Government knows best! I know the flu shot makes me
sick. It’s getting old on how much the government thinks they can take our
freedoms away. Check it out: Less than one day after a prominent doctor warned
that a totalitarian push for universal vaccination might be developing,
California Democrat Sens. Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein) began calling for
exactly what the medical expert feared. (Isn't time these useless old hags
retired or expired? --JB. Thy may find that most opposition to mandatory
vaccination comes from rich liberals--see above. I get a flu shot every year,
haven't been sick from I or had the flu or a cold in years. But I also use a
Neti Pot twice daily. ~Bob)

Undocumented Democrat News

One of Obama’s
Illegal “DREAMers” Just Did Something Sickening in Texas… Twice

Excerpt: Suddenly, a pickup truck pulled up next to
Spencer’s vehicle. Without any provocation, the driver of that truck pulled out
a gun and shot him. He died from that attack. The alleged shooter
was Victor Manuel Reyes. He was a known drug dealer from Houston — and he wasn’t done causing
violence. Just hours after the first murder, Reyes reportedly killed
again. He approached a different intersection and shot a second man named Juan
Garcia. ... There is an obvious question that comes to mind: How did an illegal
alien with a criminal record manage to
evade deportation?

Excerpt: I am a climate lukewarmer. That means I think
recent global warming is real, mostly man-made and will continue but I no
longer think it is likely to be dangerous and I think its slow and erratic
progress so far is what we should expect in the future. That last year was the
warmest yet, in some data sets, but only by a smidgen more than 2005, is
precisely in line with such lukewarm thinking. This view annoys some sceptics
who think all climate change is natural or imaginary, but it is even more
infuriating to most publicly funded scientists and politicians, who insist
climate change is a big risk. My middle-of-the-road position is considered not
just wrong, but disgraceful, shameful, verging on scandalous. I am subjected to
torrents of online abuse for holding it, very little of it from sceptics. I was
even kept off the shortlist for a part-time, unpaid public-sector appointment
in a field unrelated to climate because of having this view, or so the
headhunter thought. (Telling the Warmist fanatics that you are
"lukewarm" about it is like telling the ISIS
you are lukewarm about Allah and Shari'a. Good luck. ~Bob)

Worth Reading:
The Alarming Thing About Climate Alarmism. Exaggerated, worst-case
claims result in bad policy and they ignore a wealth of encouraging data. By Bjorn
Lomborg

Excerpt: Facts like this are important because a one-sided
focus on worst-case stories is a poor foundation for sound policies. Yes,
Arctic sea ice is melting faster than the models expected. But models also
predicted that Antarctic sea ice would decrease, yet it is increasing. Yes, sea
levels are rising, but the rise is not accelerating—if anything, two recent
papers, one by Chinese scientists published in the January 2014 issue of Global and Planetary Change, and the other by U.S.
scientists published in the May 2013 issue of Coastal Engineering, have shown a small decline in the rate
of sea-level increase. (Ridley and Lomborg, two renowned scientists who both
have a popular following, are both adherents of "climate change." However,
they think that it is much smaller than alarmists contend, that doing little or
nothing radical is called for, and there are more pressing world problems that
should be addressed before trying to take on something whose causes may not be
so clear. Cordially,

Excerpt: As the world reacts with shock and horror at the increasingly
savage deeds of the Islamic State (IS)—most recently the immolation of a
captive—U.S. President Obama's response has been one of nonjudgmental
relativism. Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 5, Obama
counseled Americans to get off their "high horse" and remember that
Christians have been equally guilty of such atrocities:

Excerpt: “We will be happy to keep an eye out for runaway
Christians, but it would be nice if he would face the reality of the situation
today. The Medieval Christian threat is under control Mr. President. Please
deal with the Radical Islamic threat today.”

Excerpt: The Islamic State set off an international
controversy when its fighters
burned a Jordanian pilot alive. Conveniently, the group now
claims that Jordan's
bombers killed an American hostage. It is not clear how the Islamic State knows
the bombers that supposedly hit this area were Jordanian, as opposed to other
coalition aircraft. Moreover, the statement says that Mueller was killed by the
"fire" caused by the bombings. This is, again, convenient given the
manner in which Mu'adh Yusuf al Kasasibah was executed. It is an attempt to
draw moral equivalency between Jordan's
attacks on the Islamic State, and the means by which the Islamic State killed a
Jordanian pilot. In fact, the group's supporters have been aggressively making
"an eye for an eye" justifications on social media since the
grotesque execution video was first aired. (I'd bet that she is dead--or a sex
slave never to be heard from again--but bet against the Jordanian bombers
killing her. I'm not going to a Muslim country as an aid or humanitarian
worker--the Religion of Peace has a way of doing for them. Be happy to go armed,
with a Marine Division--surely there is something I could do to help at my age.
~Bob)

Excerpt: In this sense, ISIS is
less like a conventional authoritarian or totalitarian state than like a mass
death cult. Most such cults attract few followers and pose limited threats; the
danger is mostly to themselves. But there are examples in modern history of
whole societies falling under the influence and control of a mechanism whose
aim is to dictate every aspect of life after an image of absolute virtue, and
in doing so to produce a mountain of corpses. ISIS doesn’t
behave like a regional insurgency or a global terrorist network, though it has
elements of both. It joins the death cult to an army and a rudimentary state.
It presents itself as the avant-garde of a mass movement, like the Khmer Rouge.
The Islamic State resembles certain modern regimes driven by murderous
ideologies, but it is also something new—as new as YouTube—and this makes it
even harder to understand. One thing we’ve learned from the history of such
regimes is that they can be stronger and more enduring than rational analysis
would predict. The
other thing is that they rarely end in self-destruction. They usually have to
be destroyed by others.

What are the practical
steps we need to take to end FGM in the UK. By Anna Leszkiewicz

Excerpt: It was once an obscure, hidden strain of violence
against women. Ignored by the state, its victims were silenced and isolated,
their pain dismissed. But, in recent years, female genital mutilation has been
brought into the public consciousness. We now have data
on how widespread FGM is in the UK, and it tells us that 170,000 women and
girls are living with the effects of this abuse in the UK, and another 65,000
girls aged 13 and under are at risk. For the first time, an accused
practitioner of FGM is being prosecuted. (It's their culture and the left
assures us that all cultures are equally valid. But the article doesn't dare
mention that the vast majority of people who cut little girls belong to one
religion. ~Bob)

Worth Reading:
Are Jihad and the Crusades Morally Equivalent? By Gary DeMar

Excerpt: Thomas F. Madden writes, "It is generally thought that
Christians attacked Muslims without provocation to seize their lands and
forcibly convert them. . . Every word of this is wrong. Historians of the
Crusades have long known that it is wrong, but they find it extraordinarily
difficult to be heard across a chasm of entrenched preconceptions." Watch
this informative video by Dr. Bill Warner that compares the perpetual wars of
the Jihadists with the Crusades.

Excerpt: On September 11, 2001, there were only a few
professional historians of the Crusades in America. I was the one who was not
retired. As a result, my phone began ringing and didn’t stop for years. In the
hundreds of interviews I have given since that terrible day, the most common
question has been, “How did the Crusades lead to the terrorist attacks against
the West today?” I always answered: “They did not. The Crusades were a medieval
phenomenon with no connection to modern Islamist terrorism.” That answer has
never gone over well.

Excerpt: MUST WATCH! Bishop E.W. Jackson goes off on
President Obama and his comparison between ISIS and Christians. Yowza! Watch
Bishop E.W. Jackson’s response to Obama’s National Prayer Breakfast speech. He
really lets him have it. Share if you agree with this preacher. Enjoy.

The defiance of Jordan: Queen Rania leads thousands of
protesters on the streets of Amman to honor
'Martyr Moaz' who was burned alive by ISIS

Excerpt: Queen Rania of Jordan
led protests on the streets of the capital Amman this morning as thousands took to the
streets after Friday prayers to urge King Abdullah II to step up airstrikes
against the Islamic State to avenge the brutal murder of pilot Moaz
al-Kasaesbeh. Crowds massed near the city's main Husseini mosque, then marched
chanting 'Death to Daesh', using a derogatory Arabic acronym for the terror
group, in the latest sign of mounting public anger. The rally came three days
after Islamic State released a video purporting to show Kasaesbeh being burnt
alive in a cage as masked militants in camouflage uniforms looked on.

"Moderate” Muslim Leader says all
Muslims are “Radical” and “Extremists”

Excerpt: Of course. This is what we’ve been saying for quite
some time and what our leaders in Washington
seem so reticent to understand. There really is no such thing as a “moderate”
Muslim. I’m not saying this to denigrate nice, law-abiding American Muslims…
I’m saying this because of the overwhelming amount of evidence that orthodox
Islamic teachings are in line with what we call “radical Islam.”

Jordan Tells ISIS
That Revenge Airstrikes Are Just 'The Beginning.' By Alastair Jamieson and
Ziad Jaber

Excerpt: It also released
a statement pledging to continue with "the killing of evil where
it hides," saying the airstrikes were carried out "in response to the
criminal, cowardly act … that was carried out by a treacherous and tyrannical
gang against the body of our pure martyr." "This is the beginning...
you will know who the Jordanians are," it said. Jordanian planes
were taking
the lead in anti-ISIS airstrikes on Friday, according to Pentagon sources.

Canadian terrorists
tied to Muslim Students Association. By Brian Daly

Excerpt: Egypt’s
Al Azhar University — seen by many as Sunni Islam’s most authoritative voice —
continues to incite enmity for and violence against non-Muslim “infidels.” (So
much for President Sisi’s exhortation before Al Azhar
that its sheikhs and ulema reform Islam in a way that makes the Muslim world
cease to be “a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the
world.”) Political writer and thinker Dr. Khalid al-Montaser
revealed in a February 2 article for El-Watan News that Al
Azhar continues to encourage enmity for Christians and even incites their
murder.

Excerpt: When news, or the accusation, that Michael Munir
had posted something offensive concerning Muhammad, dozens of Muslims
surrounded his house in the village of
Dimyana in Daqhiliya governate, Egypt.

Excerpt: Next the fatwa quotes the
eminent Hafiz ibn al-Hajar (d. 1449) who comments that “the deeds of the
companions [of Muhammad] evince the permissibility of burning, and the prophet
put out the eyes of the men of Urayna with heated iron [he also cut their hands
and feet off], and Khalid bin al-Walid burned some of the people who
apostatized.” As for Khalid—the revered “Sword of Allah”—I wrote about him
here, including how he once beheaded an “apostate,” raped his
beautiful wife, and then set the man’s severed head on fire before cooking his
dinner on it.